Rebranding of Spain's national postal service, Correos (2019)

Spain’s national mail service, Correos, has a long history and continues to serve millions daily. Its rebranding by summa: in 2019 brought a fair amount of controversy, as it often does in such a high-profile work.

Looking closely at the sizeable brief including a full-blown visual identity with logo redesign, visual applications, full touchpoint rework, custom typeface, custom patterns... and the budget spent - EUR 139K -, it actually sounds very reasonable. However, it’s easy to focus on the slight tweaks to the logo, rather than the body of work in its entirety.

Not to mention the bonus points for the trap video announcing the changes to the public

The 4 core principles of Epicurean philosophy:

1. A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness

2. Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling is nothing to us.

3. The magnitude of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together.

4. Continuous pain does not last long in the body; on the contrary, pain, if extreme, is present a short time, and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the body does not last for many days together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the body.

(via Paris Mayor Pledges a Greener '15-Minute City' - CityLab)

The original, zero-emission glasshouse: the 16th-century fruit wall

Neri Oxman on the fundamentals of her practice at MIT Media Lab

It’s in the second season of Netflix’s documentary on design practitioners, Abstract, that Neri Oxman appears.

In the episode, she tells the story of her practice mixing fundamental school of thoughts, from art and science to design and engineering, and how she sees them crossing paths naturally.

As a leader of the Mediated Matter research group at the famed MIT Media Lab, she is notably known for experimenting with bio-architecture which focuses on growth rather than build. A trained architect, doctor and engineer, she goes beyond traditional fields to create solutions which blur the lines of the possible.

One of their latest projects, Aguahoja, just won the Dezeen Award for Design of the Year

Reimagined visual identity for the World Chess Championship in 2018 got a heated press coverage.

Portraits from the National Senior Games by Humana

The "nailed it" line taps into pop and trap culture with just a touch of alt-glam, while still making the shoe an unwanted hero of the spot. Brilliant.

The ultimate guide (and toolkit) to product management by Basecamp founder Ryan Singer

How to ask for help -- and get a "yes" | Heidi Grant by TED Talks Daily

https://player.fm/1wgLfS #nowplaying

3 great insights on how to ask for help "properly":

1. be specific about what you want

2. don't apologise for asking,

3. share the results of that help when given.

The death of the calorie: how the end-all of food units is outdated in pretty much any possible way

Our understanding of modern food is mostly based on a 1890 study which enshrined a relatively unknown unit - the calorie - as the best way to count food-related energy intake and expense.

The only issue? We're still counting calories following that method, and it's far from being the end-all answer it was made up to be.

Read the full article on 1843 - The Death of the calorie - it'll change the way you shop.

How to analyse a strategy using 5 principles from Sun Tzu's Art of War

(via On being lost – wardleymaps – Medium)

100 charts on the characteristics of “super founders” at the helm of successful start-ups and scale-ups

Ali Tamaseb compiled this most excellent series of graphs and data points on some of the most successful founders and start-ups. These are only a taster. Check the whole article and analysis out!

My favourite one is perhaps the study of what are the most common client needs addressed by these firms. Productivity, money-saving and convenience top the charts, going in the direction of solving for the higher end of the Maslow pyramid.

Scott Galloway Says Amazon, Apple, Facebook, And Google should be broken up

As Elisabeth Warren announced her platform for the Democrat nomination for 2020, she said she would work towards breaking up the 4 big American tech companies (Amazon, Google, Apple & Facebook).

This late 2017 talk from L2′s founder and NYU Stern Professor Scott Galloway explains in details his rationale for a similar measure. It’s pretty damning.

Why Pavlov actually won the Nobel Prize - while teaching music to dogs

Below is the edito from the latest edition of Nautilus, titled Variables, a brilliant online journal on all things science. It relates the experiments of Ivan Pavlov, the famous Russian physiologist, and how we’ve got him mostly reduced to classical conditioning, and mostly dogs.

Kevin Berger of Nautilus:

There’s always more to the story. Take Pavlov’s dogs. The great Russian physiologist, who won a Nobel Prize for his research into the physiology of digestion, seldom rang a bell to reveal dogs could be conditioned to anticipate a reward of food. In experiments to illuminate the digestive and nervous systems of mammals, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a master at controlling variables to produce surprising and sophisticated results. In his book, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, science writer George Johnson informs us Pavlov proved dogs could anticipate time, discriminate between an object moving clockwise or counter-clockwise, and distinguish between notes on a musical scale.

In one amazing experiment, Pavlov was determined to control every possible variable that could affect the outcome, and so placed dogs in a soundproof chamber. He played a dog four notes in ascending order and gave it food. No reward was forthcoming when the notes were played in descending order. The dog quickly learned to tell the simple melodies apart and salivated at the ascending order. Further, Pavlov showed, a dog could distinguish between the ascending and descending melodies when the notes were played in 22 other combinations. Pavlov’s dogs were ready for Juilliard!                                 Controlling variables in search of a hypothetical result is one of the most important methods in science. And this month in Nautilus we spotlight how variables inform experiments in a range of scientific and cultural fields. But the concept of variables is not limited to methodology. A variable is a reminder that a shift in perception can spring us from cliché and deepen our knowledge and understanding.                                 Read the latest issue of Nautilus online

A Little Design's clever 22 m2 flat in Taipei

Bright and filled with clever compartments and shelves, this realisation by A Little Design in Taiwan's capital makes the most of every corner.

The main leading indicator of product market-fit is whether more than 40% of your users would be "very disappointed" to see it go away.

Via 20VC: Superhuman's Rahul Vohra on How To Measure Product Market Fit

Rahul Vohra has shared his thoughts on product-market fit - and how to measure it - before. They’re inspired by Sean Ellis’ startup pyramid, in which the ex-Dropbox growth guru explains that the best way to find out if users are loving your product is to ask them ¨how would you feel if you could no longer use the product”?

The golden number to aim for is at least 40% of users responding “very disappointed”.

Rahul explains in the excellent 20 Minute VC episode how Superhuman adapts this framework into a 4-question “satisfaction” survey of sorts, which informs everything they do:

Superhuman’s survey asks the following 4 questions:

Now the real value of this simple questionnaire is in how you analyse the answers. For Rahul, it’s all about segmenting, and making it into an engine for creating a better product, and focusing on the right features.

Wih this framework, Rahul and his team are able to get a better understanding of what they’re doing well for the clients who truly value their products.